Defender accidentally turns the ball towards his own net, at the last second he handballs it off the line, but almost immediatly an attacker slams the ball in for a goal.
Personally, I’d like to allow the goal and give the defender a yellow card, but I think i might get in trouble for doing that from my bosses.
This is assuming of course i didn’t immediately blow my whistle.
What would you do? Allowing the goal and red carding the guy seems harsh even if it is the right call.
He deliberately handled the ball in order to deny the other team possession, so that’s a yellow. However, he should only be sent off if he prevented a goal (or a goal-scoring opportunity), which he didn’t. So a yellow and a goal is a-okay.
Cite: Law 12, “Handling the ball” (page 123 of the PDF). (Disclaimers: I used to read the “You are the Ref” column in the Guardian, but haven’t for a few years. I’ve never reffed soccer. I haven’t played an organized game in decades.)
Well he did.
The exact play is number seven in this clip.
I do ref (youth soccer only) and you’re absolutely correct. Some referees might blow the whistle too soon, in which case a penalty kick (and a red card) would be in order, but a good ref (which I hope I am) would handle it exactly that way. Might even go lightly an not do the yellow, after all his team did give up the goal so justice is served.
Hmm. But he did prevent a goal didn’t he? Albeit he presented a goal-scoring opportunity immediately after as a direct consequence of doing so. So I would say that the letter of the law would mean a red card, although if I was refereeing (which I have only ever done from the terrace or my armchair I hasten to add) I would probably have mercy and give a yellow too.
On the other hand, giving a yellow card indicates that I’m acknowledging the offense has been committed, and that particular offense does warrant a sending-off.
Shit, you know what? I just don’t know!
The most explicit phrasing of “intentional handball + advantage + goal = yellow card” I could find is from US Soccer’s Advice to Referees. This is quoted from the 2012 version, which was the last version before US Soccer decided to use FIFA’s version of that document. (Emphasis and brackets mine.)
My link to the FIFA rules below was also outdated, I now realize. Nowadays, the Laws of the Game are published by IFAB (the ones who actually make the rule changes – 1/2 FIFA, 1/8 each part of the UK) and the interpretations are woven into the rules themselves. Here’s what they currently say:
Here is the thought process:
Handing the ball deliberately to keep it from crossing the line is a foul. It’s in the penalty area, so it’s a penalty kick that gets awarded if you stop the game at that point.
If you’re doing a good job, you wait to see if the defending team would gain an advantage from blowing the whistle (by having successfully stopped play, in this case a scoring play). If they would, you play the advantage and allow the play to proceed. You have the ability to let play continue for a few seconds before making a final determination. In this case, playing “the advantage” results in the scoring of a goal.
If the foul in question involves serious foul play, violent conduct, or a second cautionable offense, “advantage” should only be used in the case of a “clear opportunity to score a goal” (Law XII). In this case, the game is stopped if the player in question involves himself in play thereafter before the game is otherwise stopped.
If the foul that you did not stop play for involves conduct for which discipline is required by the laws, you are to issue that discipline at the next stoppage of play. If the foul involved any of the sending off offenses, the player should be sent off at that time. It is a sending off offence if you have denied the opposition a goal, or an obvious goal scoring opportunity, by handling the ball deliberately in your own penalty area (unless you are the 'keeper). In the situation in question, you have denied a goal (as opposed to intercepting a pass to a player in scoring position, which would be denying an obvious goal scoring opportunity). Had advantage not been played, the result would be a penalty kick and the administration of a sending off.
However, because you allowed play to proceed, the result of the play, paradoxically, was no longer the denial of a goal (or goal-scoring opportunity). Thus, the offense is no longer one punishable by a sending off. However, it is clearly unsporting behavior, and must be cautioned.
Now, all of the above is how I would have interpreted the rules the entire time I’ve been a referee (since 1990). It’s gratifying to know that the IFAB agrees with me. In the latest version of the rules, for 2016/17, they have specifically explicitly stated that this is how to handle the situation. Among the rule changes is a specific listing in “Cautionable offences” for handling the ball “in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent a goal.” This makes clear that the sentence in the law about application of the advantage concept to unsuccessfully handling the ball in an attempt to deny a goal-scoring opportunity resulting in a caution was intended to avoid the double-punishment of sending off if a goal actually occurs.
For my taste, the IFAB has gotten way too nitpicky in the laws. Law XII used to be relatively straight-forward. Now, it’s a convoluted mess. But I suppose that the former method of having a seemingly simple law, but then adding a whole bunch of “decisions of the IFAB” or “Instructions to referees” wasn’t much better. 
The NCAA has just changed this rule, starting next season: if the referee considers it “a legitimate attempt to play the ball,” a hand ball in the penalty area that denies an obvious goal is “only” a penalty and a yellow.
I am assuming this refers to something along the lines of a defender playing the ball off of the goal line when the goalkeeper is out of position and committing a hand ball foul while doing so, but deliberately grabbing the ball or knocking it away with the hand or arm would still be a red card.
That’s absurd. There is no “legitimate attempt to play the ball” in a case of handling. To be adjudged to have committed the foul, you have to “handle[d] the ball deliberately.” In other words, you weren’t making any legitimate attempt to play the ball, you were sticking your arm out so it would get in the way.
But the fact that the NCAA has its own set of rules regarding soccer (as does the NFSHSA) says all you need to know about the idiots running soccer for colleges and high schools here. Everyone else plays by the laws as set down by the IFAB. Only in America would we come up with our own different sets of rules. <sigh>
I have noticed a strange interpretation of “deliberately handling the ball.” (Note that the FIFA laws including touching the ball with the arm in defining “handling”; you don’t necessarily need to grab it.) If you make any sort of arm movement toward the ball, even inadvertently, then it gets called. I am imagining that the NCAA wants to keep from giving a red card to someone who, for example, tries to dive for a ball to get his body in the way but it ends up hitting his arm.
There is a reason for this. Certainly the NFHS, and to a lesser extent the NCAA, wants to open sports up to as many people as possible. This is hard to do if there is a limit of 14 players per team who can be in a particular match. (Of course, this is the NFHS that has no problem with limit a wrestling dual meet to 14 wrestlers per school, but that’s another story…) This is why NFHS has “unlimited substitution,” and the NCAA has its own version (the number of players on the bench is unlimited, but if you are taken out of the match during the first half, you cannot return until the second half, and if you are removed, put back in, and removed again during the second half, you cannot return unless there is an overtime period). I seem to recall a time when the rule was unlimited substitution, but each team was limited to 16 players total for a match.
The reason that any movement of the arm towards the ball is considered a foul is because if you are making that move you are adjudged to have done so with deliberation. That is, at some level, you are consciously doing so. Soccer players learn NOT to move their arm/hand towards a ball “instinctively”, since there is no good reason to do so. Thus the maxim: “the ball played the hand, not the hand played the ball” for situations where the foul is not called because the hand/arm was inadvertently in the way, and didn’t move to intercept.
Law III does not mandate the limitation of substitutions to three per game except for contests officially sanctioned by FIFA, it’s member confederations (for example: UEFA), and national associations (for example: USSF). College, high school, Sunday amateur, youth, etc. can use any number of subs, so long as the number is agreed before the start of the game. Thus, NFSHSA can set whatever rule on number of substitutions it wants without violating the laws of the IFAB.
Seriously, the reason there is a completely different set of rules for high school and college in America has nothing to do with substitution rules. It has to do with the American penchant for believing that we can do everything “better.” There are a number of deviations from the laws of soccer found in those two sets of rules. My favorite to complain about for some time was the existence of a rule at the high school level that allowed a player to be sent off and replaced under certain circumstances. I have refereed soccer at a number of levels here in the US (including the professional level) and it has always been amazing to me that everyone manages just fine in the US with the IFAB/FIFA laws, except high school and college. Drove me nuts keeping the high school rules separate; I stopped doing high school for that reason.